TikTok’s New Keyword Management Feature
If you've noticed some TikTok videos struggling to gain traction recently, this latest update could be worth paying attention to.
TikTok is rolling out the ability to manually add and manage keywords on published videos, giving creators and brands more control over how content is categorised and surfaced across the platform.
Previously, TikTok relied heavily on signals like captions, on-screen text, hashtags, audio, and viewer engagement to understand what a video was about. While optimising those elements is still important, creators now have another way to help the platform understand and classify their content.
Why This Matters
One of the biggest challenges on TikTok is ensuring the algorithm correctly understands your content and serves it to the right audience. If TikTok misinterprets a video or doesn't have enough context, it can limit distribution, regardless of content quality.
This new feature allows you to:
- Add additional context to your videos after publishing
- Improve discoverability for relevant search term
- Refine how TikTok categorises your content
- Potentially give underperforming videos a second chance
Our Take
At Toucan, we see this as another sign that TikTok is continuing to strengthen its search and discovery ecosystem.
Brands should think of keywords as a complement to, not a replacement for good TikTok SEO. Strong captions, relevant on-screen text, spoken keywords, and audience engagement signals will still play a major role in performance.
However, this update gives marketers another optimisation lever, particularly for:
- Product-focused content
- Educational videos
- Category-led content strategies
- Evergreen videos that continue generating views over time
What We Would Recommend
Before adding keywords, ask yourself:
- What would my target audience actually search for?
- What category should TikTok place this content in?
- Are there broader and more specific keyword variations I can include?
The brands that treat TikTok more like a search engine, not just a social platform will likely be the biggest beneficiaries of updates like this.